SHEEP-FARMING IN THE WEST. 103 



There is no humidity in this climate ; persons who lie 

 out all night in the open air will find in the morning 

 that their garments have not the slightest dampness 

 about them. The goats eat nothing except shoots of 

 vegetation and herbs, and it is this which contributes 

 to make their fleeces so brilliant." 



This climate is singularly like our own country along 

 the Big Horn, Wind River, and throughout the Black 

 Hills. Undoubtedly Angora goats would grow and 

 thrive along the whole mountain range of the " Great 

 Rockies." 



Some faint idea of the extent and capacity of our 

 immense Western pastoral region may be obtained when 

 we consider that there is grazing-ground enough in 

 Wyoming alone for all the sheep in the United States, 

 Australia, and the Argentine Republic, which now pro- 

 duce an aggregate of 300,000,000 pounds of wool, worth 

 1100,000,000, annually. The United States, with an 

 area of 2,940,000 square miles, produces 100,000,000 

 pounds of wool, while the British Islands, with an area 

 of only 118,000 square miles, produces 260,000,000 

 pounds. In other words, with twenty-five times their 

 land, and five hundred times their pasturage, we pro- 

 duce less than one-half as much wool. Buenos Ayres 

 has 75,000,000 head of sheep, and these might be 

 driven into the great West and grazed without occupy- 

 ing one-eighth of our sheep-lands. Between the Mis- 

 souri River and the Pacific coast there are not less than 

 1,650,000 square miles of agricultural lands, and more 

 than one billion of acres of grazing lands, capable of 

 grazing conveniently 600,000,000 sheep. It staggers 



